


Another Prologue

by RedheadAmongWolves



Category: Justified
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Basically Shakespeare allusions and fluff, Boyd is my poetic boi, Crack, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Kissing, M/M, Pre-Canon, Raylan deserves the world so Boyd gonna get it for him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-15 02:17:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20858591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedheadAmongWolves/pseuds/RedheadAmongWolves
Summary: “I’m fucking fine, Crowder,” Raylan growls. “Dickie’s got a mean arm, but he ain’t exactly Major League.” He shoots Boyd a suspicious glare, but he’s still rumpled enough that it’s not that intimidating. “Don’t tell him I said that.”“Seeing as at the moment I’d more likely be taking a bat to Dickie Bennett’s other knee, I think your secret is safe with me,” Boyd answers.





	Another Prologue

Boyd finds Raylan in room 207 at Lexington’s Good Samaritan, pale on a hospital bed, white gauze wrapped thick around his head and stained red above his eye. The room is quiet, staticky wall TV turned on mute, and he’s lying there staring at the ceiling, expression far away, mind probably still on the baseball field, so Boyd lifts a hand and taps his knuckles on the door. Raylan startles. 

“Boyd?” Raylan asks, surprise coloring his voice, when he spots Boyd in the doorway. He’s got a hell of a shiner purpling the skin around the bridge of his nose, which is crusted up with dried blood above his lip that a nurse hadn’t bothered to wipe away, and there’s another, smaller cut on his cheekbone that’s being secured with butterfly tape. He looks exhausted. He looks like he’s been dragged through hell six ways from Sunday. And yet, he’s the brightest thing in the pale blue room. 

Boyd swallows around a hard lump and gives him a crooked smile, meant to be coy but probably coming off way too honest, way too relieved, because watching that ambulance pull away from the baseball field had been the most harrowing moment of Boyd’s life thus far, and he doesn’t quite have his mask back in place, even after the long drive up from Harlan. Still, he tries to school his expression as he sidles into the room.

“How you holdin’ up?” Boyd asks in greeting. Raylan watches him warily, openly confused by his appearance, as he drags a nearby chair close to Raylan’s bed. 

Sitting stiffly, hands on his thighs, he squashes down on the flicker of rage stirring in his chest at the fact that Raylan is here all alone in the hospital, no visitor in sight. Arlo Givens is probably sitting in a bar as they speak, perfectly aware of where his son is because news travels faster than a bullet in Harlan, and he probably ordered another bourbon in celebration.

Boyd subtly digs his nails into the palms of his hand. That could be dealt with later. Right now, you couldn’t get Boyd to give up his chair if you offered him all of Kentucky. 

“‘M fine,” Raylan says, looking away from Boyd, because Raylan Givens knows as well as anyone that he is the worst liar in the world, because he wears all his truth on his face, clear as day, or, as Boyd studies him now, dark as a storm. He’s struck for a moment by the thought that if Raylan’s emotions controlled the weather, Heaven itself would be a tidal wave crashing down on Harlan, sweeping them all into the faraway sea. A very much deserved end, for what the world has done to Raylan Givens. 

Instead it is sunny and pleasant outside the wooden slats of the window, perfect baseball weather, and Boyd wants to pull the blinds shut to spare Raylan the cruelty. 

Instead, he gives Raylan a doubtful look, which Raylan must catch from the corner of his eye as he picks at the threads of the thin blanket covering his legs. “That goose egg on your head disagrees,” Boyd points out.

“I’m fucking fine, Crowder,” Raylan growls. “Dickie’s got a mean arm, but he ain’t exactly Major League.” He shoots Boyd a suspicious glare, but he’s still rumpled enough that it’s not that intimidating. “Don’t tell him I said that.”

“Seeing as at the moment I’d more likely be taking a bat to Dickie Bennett’s other knee, I think your secret is safe with me,” Boyd answers.

This admission makes Raylan pause. He darts a glance towards Boyd and then away again. “They said they can send me home tomorrow,” he starts, but seems to change his mind about what he’s saying halfway through, instead raising a hand to scrape it through his hair, a gesture Boyd has watched many times, many times wishing it was his own hand combing back those golden strands, or clenched in his fists as he tilts back Raylan’s head and—

Instead, he watches as Raylan’s fingers meet gauze and flop back to the bed with a huff of frustration. “I hate hospitals,” he says, voice small. 

Which, of course he does. It’s been five years since Frances Givens died, but even Boyd misses her, her velvet voice, and the way she always smelled like strawberries. Raylan had spent a lot of his time at her side in the hospital that last summer; Boyd knew this, because he’d looked for Raylan in the usual places, but always came up empty until he figured out a way to ask without sounding suspect. 

Boyd waits patiently. He won’t press Raylan to speak if he doesn’t want to. Quite frankly, he’s astonished he hasn’t been tossed from this room yet, but maybe Raylan was as keen for some company as Boyd was to be at Raylan’s side. 

It takes a long moment of listening to the nurses clatter in the hall before Raylan speaks. When he does, his voice is low, unsure.

“Do you,” Raylan grimaces, eyes everywhere but Boyd, and Boyd keeps his gaze steady on Raylan. “Do you think— I—”

Boyd leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “What?” he prompts. 

“I just. Fuck, Boyd, the only person I’ve ever known who had… who got hit in the head… was Sue Davies. And she wasn’t… she didn’t come back right,” Raylan says quietly. 

“Sue Davies was launched through her windshield at 75 miles per hour, Raylan,” Boyd replies. “No one comes back from that right, if they even come back at all.” 

“I know, damnit, but. They say I got a concussion— but. How do they know that’s all there is?”

“They’re doctors, Raylan.”

Raylan’s brow furrows. “Nevermind,” he says, dismissive. “The hell you even doing here, Crowder, go on, I don’t need you hovering over me like some—”

“Want me to quiz you?” Boyd interrupts, and Raylan stares at him.

“What?”

“Quiz you. Ask you questions and you answer ‘em. If you get them right, we’ll say you’re okay,” Boyd explains. Raylan’s eyebrows crawl slowly up his forehead with each word. 

“And if I get them wrong?” Raylan asks. His voice only shakes a little, and Boyd grants him the dignity of pretending he doesn’t notice. 

“You still got them pretty looks,” Boyd shrugs. “Hell, that bandage even makes you look like a rogue.”

Raylan grasps around the nightstand for something to hit him with, but all he can find is the pink plastic cup for the water pitcher, so he chucks that at Boyd’s head, and Boyd just dodges and grins. He’s dancing on a thin line, he knows, no matter how he wishes he could stay, because he and Raylan Givens have never run in quite the same social circles, to say the least. Raylan’s humored his presence this long. If he really wants Boyd to leave, Boyd will. 

Instead, Raylan Givens surprises him yet again, as he is apt to do in all the years Boyd has watched him from the sidelines, from the bleachers, from across a classroom, more and more captivated with each day by this too proud, too angry, too beautiful boy with a heart bigger than all of Kentucky’s sky, hell, probably all of the sky. Raylan hesitates, then nods, mouth thinning into a determined line. 

“Yeah,” he whispers. “Please.”

Raylan Givens saying ‘please’ is something Boyd would like to hear a lot more of, thank you very much. 

Boyd sits back again, flexing his fingers on the dirty knees of his jeans, and Raylan shifts too, pulling himself up so he’s reclining against the headboard, rather than propped up on his pillows. He winces as he readjusts. There’s a slight blush dusted across his cheeks, embarrassed by his own vulnerability, no doubt, so Boyd makes an effort to keep the heat out of his gaze. 

Before Boyd can ask his first question, however, Raylan asks one of his own. “How’d your, uh, lip get cut?” Raylan says, with a gesture to his own lips, and Boyd gives him a smile to keep from following those hands to that red, red mouth. 

“You’re not the only one who gets to be a rogue, Raylan,” Boyd tells him. 

He doesn’t tell him how he was the first one off the bleachers when Raylan crumpled like a sack of potatoes. How he bit back his shout enough that he bloodied his own lip when Dickie stomped his cleats down on Raylan’s face. How he watched in slow motion as Raylan swung the bat, how he couldn’t help but grin, malicious, when Dickie screamed and twisted sideways, the angle of his leg unnatural, gruesome. 

He doesn’t tell Raylan how he was the first at his side, on his knees in the red dirt of the field. How he hadn’t known what to do with his hands— they fluttered uselessly around Raylan’s shoulders, fingers ghosting across his head, getting blood on his fingertips, Raylan’s blood. Raylan’s green eyes had been foggy, staring unseeing at the sky, past Boyd, and he wished he could cradle that cheek, turn those eyes to him as the brawl broke out around them, but then Boyd was being pushed aside, and Raylan was being spirited away, out of his blood-stained reach.

Raylan rolls those green eyes now, and Boyd’s smile broadens. He clears his throat. 

“Alright. What’s your name?”

Raylan scowls at him. Boyd blinks, innocent, which earns him a petulant sigh. “Raylan Givens.”

“What’s my name?”

“Dumbass.”

The answer is expected, so Boyd lets it slide. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“What position do you play?”

“First base.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Fuck’s sake, Boyd,” Raylan groans, but Boyd just wiggles his hand. 

“How many fingers, Raylan?”

“Four, damnit, four fucking fingers.”

“Thank you. You’re doing great, five for five. Who’s the president?”

“Reagan, asshole.”

“What book are we reading in English?”

“Midsummer Night's Dream,” Raylan says, softer now. They’re in the same advanced English class, because Boyd’s smart, and he doesn’t make any effort to hide it so everyone knows it, but he seems to be one of the few people, probably the only one besides their teachers, who know Raylan Givens can hold his own against Boyd too, try as he might to fit in with the cool kids and generally fly under the radar in the school hallways. Boyd had never been good at taking his father’s advice of keeping his nose down and not starting fights where there don’t need to be none, but Raylan has perfected it. All the girls are in love with him and all the guys want to be him, but Raylan is still kind, still unobtrusive, still always there with an easy grin. He’s got his eyes on the horizon, so why bother with burning down Harlan?

Boyd’s one of the few who can see the tension in his shoulders. How close he is to snapping, like a coiled spring, or a copperhead snake. English is the one place Boyd’s desk is a little ways behind Raylan’s and a few rows over, so he’ll watch the side of Raylan’s head, the shadow of his jawline, clenched whenever someone talks to him, but relaxed whenever he’s looking down at a book, lost in its world. Boyd had seen him smile at Midsummer Night’s Dream. He asks now, so Raylan knows. 

“Who does Lysander really love?”

“Hermia,” Raylan replies. His expression grows inquisitive. 

“Just making sure you’re studying,” Boyd deflects, and this makes Raylan crack a smile, though it’s small and begrudging. 

“Your memory of current events seems intact, so how about we go backwards a bit? How old were we when we met?” Boyd asks, and Raylan tilts his head, the gesture reminiscent of a bird. 

“Six.”

Boyd nods, ignores the flutter in his chest that Raylan remembered that quickly. “Very good. What was Mr. Pickory’s old beagle’s name?” 

“Abraham, God only knows why.”

“Pickory used to teach history in Illinois, he had a thing for Lincoln,” Boyd explains, then elaborates when this earns him a look of bafflement: “I used to linger around his classroom when I didn’t want to go home.”

“Nerd,” Raylan mutters under his breath, but Boyd ignores it, because he knew Raylan used to do the same, only his sanctuary was the sports field. He presses on. “Who’d you go to homecoming with?”

“Annabelle Watkins,” Raylan answers. 

“Was she as good a kisser as they say she is?”

At this, Raylan arches an eyebrow, eyes dancing. “Now how would you know if my answer was right or wrong?”

“Hey now, it’s alright if she wasn’t. Or maybe she was, but you’re not as good as they say you are.”

“Excuse me, I’ll have you know I’ve never received any complaints in that department,” Raylan says, trying to mock-puff up his chest as much as he can in a hospital bed, and when he misses the mark by a mile Boyd smothers a teasing smile.

“Ah, but you have for the other departments? No shame in that, Raylan, I’m sure you have other redeeming qualities. You can read, you can write, you can drive a car. You can hit a ball with a stick, very impressive,” Boyd counters, and Raylan laughs, a short, bright sound, and Boyd grins back until Raylan’s face breaks into a pained wince, his hands flying up to clutch at his head.

Boyd slides into motion instinctively, moving from the chair to settle on the edge of Raylan’s mattress, hands reaching and gentling on Raylan’s bandages before he can think to move them. He can’t do much for Raylan’s pain, but he still murmurs a soft “Easy there,” as he shifts a pillow up higher for Raylan to set his head against. “How’re you supposed to woo Miss Watkins if you can’t hold up your own head?”

“I’m not gonna be wooing much of anyone if I can’t— wait, Boyd, do you think—” Raylan’s eyes grow wide and horrified, staring up at Boyd, “what if I can’t play baseball anymore? How the hell am I supposed to get out of—?” His voice drops off to a barely audible whisper, like it’s plunging over a cliff, but Boyd just shushes him as he finishes adjusting the pillow and smooths the blanket across the mattress, keeping his fingers clear of Raylan’s thigh.

“Those are the questions about the future, Raylan, and we’re not there yet,” Boyd tells him, voice light, even as he pulls his hands away and slides a careful inch backwards. He does not, however, move back to the chair, but Raylan doesn’t say anything. “You’re not Superman, Raylan. You’re not gonna heal a helluva concussion in a handful of hours.”

“Thought you said I was doing good,” Raylan mumbles, almost-but-not-quite sassily, the fear not quite out of his expression. At least he isn’t staring at Boyd in terror anymore. Boyd’s heartbeat is loud in his own ears, aching in sympathy as he wishes he could give Raylan a better answer. 

“I’ve been giving you easy questions,” Boyd replies. “But I’d gladly up the ante. You remember when my aunt Josephine got remarried?”

Raylan’s eyes sharpen. It’s an effective distraction, even as it veers them towards territory Boyd is nervous as hell to tread. 

They’d been thirteen. The whole town had been invited: Josephine had been in the church choir, and was one of those ladies who took it upon herself to know each and every person who sat in those pews, and especially those who didn’t, so she could talk them into coming. The reception had been held on Crowder property, on the back lawn. There’d been a potluck dinner, the church band had been hired to play, and fairy lights were strung from every tree branch, above big clusters of sunflowers donated from the Bennetts. 

The lake had been a few good paces away from the party, hidden by the thick grove of trees that circled Crowder land. The teenagers had all raced back there, clutching stolen jars of ‘shine that could singe the eyebrows off a skunk, shedding stuffy layers as they’d run to splash into the cold water. 

By unspoken agreement, what had happened by the lake that day between Raylan and Boyd had been left by the lake, and both boys had slipped quietly back into the roles they had waiting for them, never to refer to it again, that brief truce, the laying down of bad blood between families. Until now. Because Boyd has thought of that day every day since, and he is desperate to know if Raylan has too. 

If he hasn’t, then he hasn’t, and Boyd will leave, and the world will set itself to rights. If he has, well. Boyd doesn’t know what he’ll do. 

Raylan speaks. There’s a strained undercurrent. “Yeah, ‘f course. First time I ever tasted ‘shine.” 

Maybe it’s a lifeline, an out for Boyd to take. But Raylan’s still watching him with a question in his gaze, so Boyd doesn’t. 

“What else do you remember?” 

A beat, an inhale. Then: “The snake,” Raylan says, quiet. “Of course.”

The two of them, momentarily alone on the bluff overlooking the lake, seconds before jumping into the chaos of schoolmates below. Yellow wildflowers and violets and sun-hot dirt under their feet, and Boyd’s hand reaching out, curling around Raylan’s bicep, the heat of bare skin meeting his palm as he yanked Raylan out of the serpent’s path. Raylan stumbled towards him, hands gripping Boyd’s arms for balance, and there was a glacier-slow pause, eons passing in seconds as they stared at each other, and Boyd thought he might be having a premonition, seeing a prophecy, of how many times he’s going to pull Raylan Givens out of harm’s way. 

Boyd doesn’t ask if Raylan saw it too, but he doesn’t have to: it’s unmistakable on Raylan’s face. This time, though, he doesn’t turn away. 

Boyd offers a shaky grin. “Damn lucky, too,” he manages. “Should’ve just pushed you in.”

This tugs a grin over Raylan’s mouth and a sparkle in those green eyes, those eyes that look like that lake now, from all those years ago, and Boyd remembers the water was cold, a blessed relief from the hot summer sun, running from the heat of Raylan’s skin under his hand, but he’s spent the last five years running, and it’s just brought him back to that lake and those eyes, time and time again. And frankly, he’s sick and tired of running. 

Boyd sucks in a breath, and dives. 

“Will you go out with me?”

Raylan’s grin plummets. He darts a furtive glance to the open door over Boyd’s shoulder before meeting his eyes, his expression intent, surprised, but… well, not disgusted. Not like he’s gonna kick Boyd off the end of his bed and out him to the whole town and let the baseball team knock him into next week. Boyd’s no coward, but he’ll still admit to his heart pounding in his ribcage, his stomach twisting itself into knots. It’s what happens when you’ve wanted something this long, this fiercely, that you just decide to let the chips fall where they may, instead of spend another second not knowing.

Raylan just watches him for a long moment, the longest moment of Boyd’s life, before asking, “What?”

Boyd refuses to flinch. “Will you, Raylan Givens, go on a date with me.”

“If you’re trying to be funny, Boyd Crowder—” Raylan’s voice is tight and rough as a sandstorm, and Boyd can see the fury starting to build behind those green eyes, so he takes a breath and slides closer along the mattress. Raylan presses instinctively back against the pillows, but Boyd just settles his hand on top of Raylan’s on the scratchy sheets. Raylan’s skin is as warm and smooth as Boyd remembers, all the callouses on his palm still pressed to the blanket. Boyd is self-conscious, suddenly, of the callouses on his own, earned from fights and gritty work and not something sleek and cool as baseball, but Raylan, somehow, doesn’t pull away. The warmth seeps into Boyd’s fingers until it feels like the sun is alight under his skin. 

“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my whole life,” Boyd tells him, voice a reverent whisper. Raylan’s breath hitches, and he opens his mouth to speak. Boyd doesn’t know what he expects him to say. Maybe it’d be easier if Raylan just kicked him out, called him ridiculous, even threatened him with that thunder rumble voice of his, and Boyd could walk out those doors and they’d both spend the rest of their lives pretending the other doesn’t exist. 

The last thing Boyd expects him to say, however, is, “Why?” 

So Boyd answers him, truthfully as he can. “Because I’ve watched you every day since we were six years old. Because you’re smart and terrifying and goddamn beautiful, and I like that you walk and talk like you know that. Because I’ve wanted— for years—” 

Raylan’s eyes, which up to this point have been staring at Boyd incredulously, drop to Boyd’s lips, and suddenly they’re mere inches apart, but Boyd can’t tell which of them moved first, only that they’re sharing a breath of air between them, and then Raylan Givens, the bravest boy Boyd has ever met, leans in and closes the distance between them. 

And that’s how Raylan Givens and Boyd Crowder kiss for the first time, on a hospital bed in Lexington, Kentucky, just out of sight of a door wide open to the hallway beyond, Harlan and their histories and their families beyond that. But Boyd doesn’t think about any of that. He can only think of Raylan, filling up all his senses, soft mouth against his, skin smelling like sweat and antiseptic, his hand reaching up and fisting in the hem of Boyd’s shirt to hold him in place. Not that Boyd has plans of going anywhere anytime soon. 

He lifts his free hand to Raylan’s jaw, fingers brushing gently over the sharp line of bone, and Raylan tilts his head to keen into the touch. Boyd feels Raylan’s hand shift under his on the mattress, twisting until it’s facing upwards, and his fingers twine with Boyd’s, callouses kissing. He wonders if Raylan can feel Boyd’s heart thudding in his fingertips.

Then, Raylan hisses a sharp breath of air as Boyd’s nose collides with a bruise, and they both pull back, though Raylan looks mournful.

Boyd moves his hand from Raylan’s jaw to linger feather-light over the other boy’s lips. “Well, now I see why Annabelle Watkins said yes to homecoming.”

Raylan uncurls his hand from Boyd’s shirt and flicks him on the forehead. 

Boyd steals another kiss, because he can. 

“So. Is that a yes?” Boyd murmurs against Raylan’s mouth. 

“Yeah, dumbass,” Raylan huffs. “That’s a yes.” His fingers squeeze tight around Boyd’s, so Boyd squeezes back. It’s the final confirmation that this isn’t a dream. 

The nurses’ footsteps in the hallway grow just a little too near, so Boyd slides back, and he almost lets go of Raylan’s fingers before Raylan flicks back the blanket so their joined hands are concealed from view and left undisturbed. When Boyd beams at him, his cheeks go a rosy pink, and he clears his throat, lifting his chin to try and look sly. Bloodied and bruised with kiss-swollen lips, Boyd must admit he still pulls it off. 

“So what’s your diagnosis, doc?” Raylan asks, eyes glinting in the light, and Boyd laughs. 

“Well, Raylan Givens,” he drawls, “I think you’ll live.”

“That’s good to hear. Just promise me you won’t take a bat to Dickie Bennett’s truck without me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” 

Fin.

**Author's Note:**

> There are a million tiny Shakespeare references bc I couldn’t shake this image that Raylan is Lysander and Boyd is Hermia don’t touch me I’m oozing metaphors it’s probably contagious 
> 
> title from the line “Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion” from Midsummer Night’s Dream but mostly bc give me every pre-canon secret relationship AU or I’ll scream 
> 
> also read this n tell me you don’t wanna walk into the ocean: 
> 
> One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,  
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,  
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:  
The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,  
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;  
And as imagination bodies forth  
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen  
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing  
A local habitation and a name.
> 
> omg this is my 10th fic on ao3 we in them double digits baby !! don’t own/profit from anything Justified woohoo


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